Journal of Xidian University

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Calculation of bandgap characteristic and electron effective mass  in uniaxial strained Germanium

DI Linjia1,2;DAI Xianying1,2;MIAO Dongming1,2;WU Shujing1,2;HAO Yue1,2   

  1. (1. School of Microelectronics, Xidian Univ., Xi'an 710071, China;
    2. State Key Lab. of Wide Bandgap Semiconductor Technology Disciplines, Xidian Univ., Xi'an 710071, China)
  • Received:2017-06-23 Online:2018-06-20 Published:2018-07-18

Abstract:

Strain engineering plays an important role in improving Ge devices performance, while energy band structure is the theoretical basis for studying the electrical and optical properties of strained Ge. In this paper, the energy band structure of uniaxial strained Ge, over the entire Brillouin zone, is obtained by diagonalizing a 30-band k·p Hamiltonian matrix which includes the spin-orbit coupling interaction and strain effect. According to the band dispersion relation, the conduction band valleys shift and split, as well as electron effective masses, including longitudinal, transverse and density-of-states effective masses are quantitatively evaluated. Calculation results indicate that Ge is converted from an indirect to direct bandgap semiconductor under the [001] and [111] uniaxial tensile stress. The longitudinal and transverse effective masses of L and Δ valleys are not obviously dependent on the uniaxial stress. However, the density-of-states effective masses of L and Δ valleys can be minimized by the [111] and [001] uniaxial compressive stress respectively, which is of benefit to increase the mobility by reducing the probability of electron scattering. These results can provide a theoretical reference for the design of high-performance uniaxial strained Ge devices.

Key words: 30k·p method, uniaxial strained Ge, energy band structure, electron effective mass